So I know the global financial markets are being redefined with a butcher’s knife right now, but I’ve never seen so many new business opportunities coming along. And no, it’s not even like buses. At least with buses you don’t try to jump on each and every one of them and it's certainly not like my love life...

Anyway why are we besieged with RFPs right now?

Here are my theories:

Theory one: the crunch has been around for a while now. It has made our market very competitive. At recent trade shows I repeatedly heard, “My agency is just not delivering.” Now I doubt very much if other agencies can’t deliver, they wouldn’t be here if they couldn’t. But over the last year I’ve lost a couple of pitches due to costs, where a competitor has come in with a more aggressive bid. I would hazard that after the honeymoon period (three months usually gets to the bottom of it), these accounts are now being serviced at the quoted levels. So the customer has a minute a month of a senior consultant and a couple of days of someone fresh out of college. Inevitably, service levels, and results, suffer as a consequence.

Theory two: I’ve recently met several marketing execs facing the same problem: their division needs more support than central comms will give it. One central comms team supporting a big diversified organization, can end up being somewhat vanilla in its approach. So these maverick marketers turn feral and come to talk to us. Our culture, and indeed the people that we employ, are all about the deep dive. What do you want to know about achieving equilibrium in fragmented markets? How outsourcing can help hedge funds survive the meltdown? Or the role of liquidity in risk management?... In tough times topping up central comms, with bespoke programs that speak to your markets about their problems in their language, can be a judicious move.

Theory three: Right now, accountability and commonsense demand that you look at every line item in your budget and ask the question, “Are we really getting value from our marketing spend?” A far blunter question would be: “Could we get it cheaper?” I’m guessing that we don’t come out on top for that last one. But the smarter question is, “Could our marketing spend work harder, position us as innovators, make more impact, create more buzz, reach further, initiate more dialogue?” Well, in those conversations, we seem to be doing really rather well.

So, all in all, despite the winter chill outside, here in St Martin’s Lane we are cooking on gas. Now if I could just get my romantic situation to follow suite, I’d have the perfect work/life balance.